Here's The Scoop On....SAKURA!

Reflecting on the article that I wrote about Debbie Mumm, I came to this conclusion: We at the ACJA now know about the designs that Debbie creates, but not much about the production end of the cookie jars that we buy. Sakura could supply the rest of the story, I thought. Mumm's the Word gave me the name of a gentleman at Sakura, Jeff Grinspan. He is their Director of Licensing. Today, I had a very nice conversation with Jeff about the jars they produce at Sakura.

Jeff told me that Sakura has been producing Debbie Mumm cookie jars for five years. The jars are made in China; every one is hand painted. At this point, no airbrushing is done. A normal production run varies from 5,000 to 25,000 jars. Sakura considers cookie jars more of a gift item than a tabletop item. Each of Debbie's designs produced so far has been in conjunction with dinnerware, which is what Sakura primarily produces. I told Jeff that I thought the quality control seems excellent at Sakura. The day I interviewed Debbie Mumm, Melba and I bought ten of Debbie's jars from Mervyn's. We opened each jar to check for damage; all the jars were in excellent condition.

Sakura has produced cookie jars by other artists. One was for Walt Disney's 101 Dalmatians. Also, they produce jars from designs by Warren Kimble, who is considered by his own description, "One of America's foremost folk artists." (Do I smell another story?) "Warren's Vermont scenes of Americana, rich with texture, often feature exaggerated versions of black and white cows and other animals with small heads and large bodies," I was told by Jeff. This spring Sakura released one of Warren's cookie jars, a white rooster with black spots. It will have a unique matte finish glaze to make it look very old. This jar is now in Target stores. Jeff who doesn't have a cookie jar in his home at this point says, "This may be the one!" The pattern will be Country Quartette. There will be go-withs in this pattern, too.

I asked Jeff to tell about the production of sample jars. "We generally will create a cookie jar sample from either flat art or the actual dinner plate decals and then the factory will just design from that point. They supply us with general pre-production samples for review by the designer, artist or licensor," Jeff said. Changes are made until everybody is in sync.

What jars do you have in production now and when will they be released, I asked Jeff. He said, "We show a lot of samples in October and April at the New York Tabletop Market, a trade opportunity for buyers. It takes about three to six weeks before we can make an assessment about what buyers will be interested in."

Jeff gave me the email address of a lady at Sakura to contact to find out about new releases. When I am able to touch base with her, I will report my findings to you. At this point Sakura does not have a website.

When I asked Jeff about the Honey Bee Hive cookie jar that is pictured he said, "Three years ago it was a pre-production sample from a pattern called Summer Garden. There were actually two versions. The first one the bee was all brown and looked like a killer bee or a cockroach! The second version had a yellow and white stripe on the bee, like the one pictured." Jeff laughingly said " I called it the dietetic cookie jar, you didn't want to put your hand into the jar, the way the bee was staring at you!" Summer Garden is now in production in melamine, but Sakura has no plans at this point to produce the cookie jar. Personally, I hope they change their mind, I think it's a great jar! The Santa pictured by himself on the front of the ACJA Winter Newsletter 1999, is called "Christmas Topiary" and will be released in 2000! I can't wait to add him to my collection!

I talked to Jeff about holiday jars and he said, "We are working on a second Halloween jar for Debbie." He went on to say, "We have two new Easter cookie jars for Debbie that are coming out. One is a very uniquely stylized bunny and the second one is a large wicker basket filled with colored eggs, on the top of which is a butterfly sitting on the handle of the basket." What great news! We talked about other holidays, but the bottom line for Sakura, like any other company is making money. There has to be the market there to support a large enough product run to make it worthwhile. The smaller holidays are not as appealing from a money standpoint as say, Halloween and Christmas.

Another one of my questions to Jeff was how many jars does Sakura target to produce of Debbie's each year? He replied, "It's a combination of dinnerware lines, what inspires us in terms of the art, the number of individual cookie jars that are coming back from the prior year and buyers who want them. Really we don't set a number at all. It's driven by level of buyer interest."

The ACJA has Jeff's promise of the donation of a "special" cookie jar! Catalog sheets of Debbie's jars will be forthwith coming also. If we have the catalog sheets at press time, they will be included with the article. As for the jar, more details will be given at a later date!

Jeff thanks for your time, patience in answering my questions and sharing your knowledge with us at the ACJA. You have our appreciation!

Author's note: I would also like to express appreciation to Gwen Mauger and Merla Davis for their expertise in helping with the questions for the interviews with Debbie Mumm and Jeff. I would also like to thank Beverly Sutton for sharing her picture of the Country Quartet Cookie Jar.